{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/j2/j2070.htm","path":"bud/j2/j2070.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/j2/j2070.htm","text":"The Jataka, Vol. II, tr. by W.H.D. Rouse, [1895]\n\"All the world's on pleasure bent,\" etc.--This story the Master told, while dwelling at Jetavana, about a greengrocer who was a lay-brother.\nThe circumstances have been already given in the First Book 1. Here again the Master asked him where he had been so long; and he replied, \"My daughter, Sir, is always smiling. After testing her, I gave her in marriage to a young gentleman. As this had to be done, I had no opportunity of paying you a visit.\" To this the Master answered, \"Not now only is your daughter virtuous, but virtuous she was in days of yore; and as you have tested her now, so you tested her in those days.\" And at the man's request he told an old-world tale.\n_____________________________\nOnce upon a time, when Brahmadatta was king of Benares, the Bodhisatta was a tree-spirit.\nThis same pious greengrocer took it into his head to test his daughter. He led her into the woods, [180] and seized her by the hand, making as though he had conceived a passion for her. And as she cried out in woe, he addressed her in the words of the first stanza:--\nWhen she heard it, she answered, \"Dear Father, I ant a maid, and I know not the ways of sin:\" and weeping she uttered the second stanza:--\nAnd the greengrocer, after testing his daughter thus, took her home, and gave her in marriage to a young man. Afterwards he passed away according to his deeds.\nWhen the Master had ended this discourse, he declared the Truths and identified the Birth:--at the end of the Truths the greengrocer entered on the Fruit of the First Path:--\"In those days, father and daughter were the snore as now, and the tree-spirit that saw it all was I myself.\"\n126:1 No. 102, Pa\u1e47\u1e47ika-J\u0101taka, where recurs the second stanza.","title":"The Jataka, Vol. II: Book II. Dukanip\u0101ta: No. 217. Seggu-J\u0101taka","type":"page"}